


Steadfast In the Broken Binding

by mythaster



Category: The Binding - Bridget Collins, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Evil Books, M/M, More Characters To Come Maybe, Slow Burn, this started out as a quick fun ship thing but it might turn into a plot thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26457532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythaster/pseuds/mythaster
Summary: Michael Shelley has never been to the Archivery. He has never had memories pulled from his head. He has never met the Archivist's apprentice.Which doesn't explain why there's a whole row of the apprentice's books in the Archivery vault, with Michael's name on their spines.Title and chapter names taken from Edna St. Vincent Millay'sCollected Poems.
Relationships: Michael Shelley/Jonathan 'Jon' Sims | The Archivist, Michael | The Distortion/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 13
Kudos: 20





	1. Stranger, Pause And Look

**Author's Note:**

> If you aren't familiar with Bridget Collins's _The Binding_ , the gist: binders are people who can take a person's memories and bind them into books. The person tells the binder what they want to forget, the binder takes that memory and puts it in a book, the person forgets, and the binder has a book on their hands. 
> 
> Some binders are seen as witches or sorcerers who steal bits of people's souls when they bind memories; other binders are well-to-do businessmen who make a lot of money from powerful people wanting to cover up their misdeeds (or make their victims forget). 
> 
> There are "trade" books, which a person might sell to a binder along with their consent that the memory will be sold to a third-party reader. It's illegal to sell books made from a living person's memories without consent to trade, which of course means jack-all and books made from a living person's memories without consent fetch a high price.

The bright summer noon was gray-green when the bookseller caught Michael picking through her wares.

She didn’t speak at first, but he felt the weight of her gaze when it snagged and fell on him. He let the slim velvet-covered book he’d taken up slip back to the table with its siblings. He was by himself at the fair but she didn’t know that, so he glanced up and down the crowded thoroughfare, trying to look like he was waiting on someone. That he’d only stopped at her table until he wasn’t alone anymore.

The cover had left the faintest of blue fuzz or dye - he wasn’t sure which - on his fingertips. He brushed his hands on his pants and half-turned, though his hands were still blue-ish.

“It likes you,” the bookseller said, and it wasn’t a compliment.

Michael rubbed his thumbs over his fingers. “Oh, no,” he said, not sure why, or what else to say. “I don’t think so.” And then, because she was still watching him, everything about her the color of iron, her hair, her eyes, the rings on her fingers, “I’m sorry.”

The bookseller rose from her chair and picked up the book he’d held a moment before. Examined the spine. Ran a finger down the gutter. She wasn’t speaking to him, wasn’t paying attention to him anymore, but Michael didn’t dare leave, not without a direct dismissal. She was an iron spike who had fixed him to the ground he stood on. 

The sun came out from the cloud it had hidden behind, turning the gray noon a bright, hard-shadowed white.

“You smell like the Archivery,” the bookseller said, dropping the book with even less ceremony than Michael had. It  _ thunk _ ed against the other books, stacked in heaps that obscured covers and spines and showed only the page edges: white, cream, yellow-brown, gold-edged, crimson, spackled with green like robin’s eggs, smooth and deckled and chipped with age. They were more vivid than the colors of autumn leaves or spring flowers, more beautiful by half. 

Michael realized what she’d said.

“What?” And, “No.” And, “No, I’ve - I’ve never been. No.”

She gazed at him, unimpressed and unconvinced. She tidied the book she’d dropped - her fingers did not turn blue - and went back to her seat, a carved wooden thing in the center of a hardy, worn rug laid over the bare earth. “Well,” she said, casually, but with the edge of a challenge. “What would I know about it?”

Michael still couldn’t tell if he’d been dismissed or not.

The bookseller watched the fairground crowds for a few moments more before she glanced at him again, surprised to see him still there. “Did you want to buy it?”

“It…? Oh, the - the--” He looked at the blue-velvet book and then again at his fingertips. “No. No, I don’t. I’m only - waiting--”

“It’s just a novel,” the bookseller said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Fake. Made up. An early one of his.”

“His…?”

“The Archivist’s apprentice.”

He stared at her, uncertain. “Ah.”

“It’s safe,” she said. “As they go.”

Another challenge. Michael hadn’t come to the fair to be challenged. He’d come to get the sweetest cake-on-a-stick he could find and listen to the loudest music they could play, to get sunburned and turn as red as he could get. Not to buy a book. Even a novel. No matter who’d bound it.

“No, thank you,” he said. “Sorry for your time.”

“No one else around, is there,” she muttered, and leaned forward to pluck the blue-velvet book off the stack herself, flipping the cover open to the first few pages, before the real story began.

“Thank you,” Michael said again, and finally her attention had shifted completely enough that he felt able to leave. He did so, turning his back on the bookseller’s stall and slipping into the crowds, obeying its natural movement, willing to follow it wherever it took him, as long as it took him away.

The cake wasn’t sweet enough. The music wasn’t loud enough. His skin stung by the end of the day, and spots swam in his eyes on the walk back home, and he was so warm that it circled back around to cold. When he tried to drink water he almost threw it back up again; he fell asleep in his small attic-room bed with the covers kicked to the floor. But the only color on his skin he could see was his fingertips: a deep, royal blue.


	2. This Body of Flame and Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no proper way to react to a surprise door. Nevertheless Michael couldn’t comprehend the swell of fear that rose in him, blocking his throat and tunneling his vision. His fingernails dug into the soft skin at the corner of his mouth, and the yellow door continued to do nothing but exist where it shouldn’t have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: bit of body horror and blood, though I think it's pretty mild or at least canon-typical for TMA.

He shouldn’t have spent so much time and energy at the fair. He woke groggy and nauseated the next morning, aching from his skin to his bones. He wanted to get up, to work with the rest of the family and farmhands, but this - not so much a relapse as a little trip-up, a bit of punishment for his indulgences - put him back in bed for the rest of the day. Mrs. Shepard brought up water and broth at intervals, saying little and smiling not at all, and he fell asleep as guilty as he was sick. He dreamed dreams colored blue.

Michael had lived with the Shepards for almost five years and wasn’t certain that they knew his first name, especially not after months of his lying in bed ill. They weren’t cruel about it, of course, and they had other hands living in their big farmhouse to pay attention to - bigger, louder men and women. He was grateful to them for the use of their attic room; they could have easily asked him to leave after Ryan’s death. But they hadn’t, and a space to himself was more important to him than a friendly relationship with his employers. He stayed out of their way after working hours, and they let him alone.

The illness - pneumonia, they said; Michael never remembered enough of it to verify - had stolen much of Michael’s endurance, so he had been on easy work for the past few weeks. The fair had been the first time he’d been off the farm since falling ill. 

The next day, he was able to sit up and even stand, but wobbled on his way to the door. Mrs. Shepard tonelessly suggested he stay in, and Michael knew that he would be in the way if he didn’t, so he obeyed.

Instead of working, he took his color diary down from the little shelf in the corner. There was a leak there in the roof that Michael could never locate, and the journal pages always turned muddled and swollen after he made an entry. He’d started collecting colors shortly after Ryan died. It was a pretty distraction, finding things and places in the world where color popped through untainted by gray. Even so, he’d found less and less as time went on.

Sometimes he thought Ryan had taken all the color in the world with him when he passed.

As usual, the previous pages were unintelligible, and Michael took a moment to mourn the loss of the colors he’d found. He thought one of them had been green, but that was mostly wishful thinking; he couldn’t remember the others at all. That day, he looked at the fading stain on his right hand and wrote with the left, documenting where he’d seen the color, what it felt like, how it looked.

_It reminds me of how they talk about the sky in poetry. Open, pure, a call._

On the third morning after the fair, Michael joined the household again, not that they’d much noticed his absence; they were as gregarious as ever, an effortless family of some ten Shepards and farmhands mingling like friendly chickens around the slab of wooden table. He left the house before breakfast was over, taking bread and cheese with him to nibble while he inspected the pasture fences. They didn’t need inspecting, but the Shepards needed him out from underfoot, so that was where they sent him, and Michael didn’t complain. 

  
The morning was cool and dry, a bluish gray that reminded him of winter ice instead of summer sun. The fence was fine. Michael didn’t hurry. The cheese was salty and still warm on the bread. At first, the sounds of the farm drifted to him over the air, inescapable, but in very little time he’d gone out of earshot, and there was only the wind and his footsteps in the tall grass and a bird here and there to listen to. A thin, thorny little branch caught in the curls of his hair and he spent a few moments getting himself free. 

At some point between now and the color diary entry, the blue stain had left his fingers.

  
  
Recuperating from the illnesses was second nature by now. A month or so lost, except for the flashes of... sound, coming from him, sound he didn’t want to remember after all - and then it would break. He would work easy tasks for a while and then he was fine, until it happened again. He didn’t think recurrent pneumonia was an illness that existed, but what did he know? He wasn’t the one who remembered it. The Shepards knew better than he did.  


The family plot was at the fence’s northeast corner. Michael took a detour, licking cheese from his fingers, and went to Ryan’s spot under the oak tree. 

“Picked up a book at the fair,” he said to the newest of the dozen or so stones, and tucked his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t buy it, of course. Just held it. The dye came off on my hands. No wonder they’re so bright.”

Unsurprisingly, the stone didn’t respond, nor the body beneath. Michael withdrew one hand, brushed it across the top of the headstone. The rough surface scraped at his fingertips. 

“Take care,” he said, as always, and backed out of the plot. He didn’t like turning away from Ryan. Usually he felt his way out of the plot in reverse until the small of his back hit the fence again. Then, as if he’d bolted a door behind him, it was safe to turn away and leave Ryan under the sod.

He kept tradition today. Shuffled back, the stone in sight. Felt a solid wooden post bump up against his spine. Stopped, blinked--

A yellow door stood behind the stone.

Michael held himself in place. His breath dried in his throat, and he almost coughed, but he put one hand over his mouth.

Another bird sang. A breeze kicked up, spinning a curl of leaves into the air, and then died, letting them fall again. Two squirrels tore through the upper branches of a pine. Needles showered down in their wake. One needle dropped onto the yellow door, wavering on its lintel before another faint wind knocked it off. It cast a thready shadow across the yellow door as it fell.

The yellow door should not have been there, but it was.   


There was no proper way to react to a surprise door. Nevertheless Michael couldn’t comprehend the swell of fear that rose in him, blocking his throat and tunneling his vision. His fingernails dug into the soft skin at the corner of his mouth, and the yellow door continued to do nothing but exist where it shouldn’t have.  


With the whisper of a creak, the yellow door tilted open. Just an inch or so. Its frame stood thin and unsupported and steady. In the gap, where the rest of the gray-green plot should have been visible, was color: a rainbow. An oil slick. The surface of a bubble. It stung Michael’s eyes. He couldn’t remember ever seeing such bright colors; nothing like these had ever graced his diary. It repelled him and it drew him. The pain was like the pleasing burn of muscles in use, the burn before a breakthrough. If he was only a little closer.  


Michael shifted forward. He didn’t even lift his foot, just leaned in, tilting away from the anchor of the pasture fence.  


The door blew wide open and the oil slick gushed free. The ground dropped out from under Michael’s feet and the forest beyond the pasture stretched like candy, and then it wasn’t stretched at all and it was normal again, and so was Michael, except that something itched, itched, _itched_ under his skin in his marrow, and his head was splitting open from the inside out, bones peeling from bones.   


_“Michael...”_ someone sighed from the inside of his ear and the pit of his stomach and right before his face.  


His fingernails ached and where his fingertips had been blue the day before now they were red, bright and shimmering as oil on a fire or the reflection in an owl’s eye. There was a hot wetness in his mouth that strangled his panicked voice, not that he knew or cared what he was saying or yelling or screaming. He was being butchered from the inside out, and it was letting him watch. 

\--until someone shoved a piece of ice into his mouth.  


“Bite down,” a voice commanded, and something about the shock, and the pain in his scalp where they had grabbed him by his hair, and the icy stab to the insides of his mouth, made him obey.   


More pain, this in his teeth when he bit too hard and the ice didn’t give and it felt like his teeth had shattered, but this pain was normal, furiously human. It wasn’t the oily fire or the silent, interior horror of seeing his bones sliced thin and rearranged. This pain made him curse out loud, garbled around the chunk of ice.   


As if satisfied, the hand released its handful of hair near the base of his neck, and Michael sagged forward, holding the ice in his mouth with difficulty. Then he looked up.  


It was the bookseller. She wore trousers and a well-fitted blouse, and must have once been wearing the jacket and vest that were now crumpled in the grass a few feet away. In one hand she held a stack of books, in the other a medicine bottle full of orangey liquid.  


The yellow door was still there, just beyond Ryan’s headstone. Michael jerked backwards, throwing himself against the fencepost.  


The bookseller, with an iron calm, walked up to the yellow door. It was still wide open, still shimmering with oily color, and Michael knew it was laughing. Laughing. Laughing like the dry hinges of an ancient gate. The bookseller must not have heard it because she stopped nearer than a yard away, then tossed the books at the door’s base.   


The oil slick still clung to Michael’s extremities - his brain, his shoulder blades, the tiny bones in the backs of his hands. He crunched harder on the chunk of ice, wishing he could look away from the yellow door and the bookseller before it. He couldn’t, and so he heard its laughter sharpen. Turn flat. Turn desperate. It was ready to take her, too.  


But before it could take her, she smashed the bottle on the ground, chucking it hard at the books at the base of the yellow door. The books were drenched and the doorframe was splattered and the oil slick beyond recoiled and Michael realized its laughter was screaming, might have always been screaming, and it sounded like--  


“Try harder next time,” the bookseller said, taking something from her trouser pocket. At this angle, from this distance, Michael could hardly tell what it was until she made a quick jerk of her hand and a flame flared to life between her fingers. A match from a matchbox. “If you can spare the focus.”  


It didn’t understand the flame until it was too late. It almost loved them anyway, they were made of such chaos and nonsense. They would have been better if they were pink and yellow and purple and blue as well as orange and red and toothy.  


The ice dropped from Michael’s open mouth as the door burned. He scrambled to his feet, clinging to the fencepost, and watched gray crawl up the yellow paint, chipping it from the grayer wood beneath. Under his skin the oil slick was still. Dead, gone, asleep?  


The bookseller reached through the flames and pulled the door shut, firm and final.  


Then the oil slick died. It laughed as it tore through Michael’s bones, ripping them through his skin after it on its way to its dying yellow door. Michael screeched and the fencepost under his hands went wetly red. He couldn’t look at them, couldn’t stand to look at his fingers. It would be a mess and he couldn’t stand it. Beyond the bookseller, the yellow door collapsed in on itself like so many yellow sticks.  


The bookseller lunged for the doorknob, a heavy brass thing, but it was gone in the ashes, and when the bookseller kicked the ashes apart, it was gone from them, too.  


Michael clung to the fencepost. The sky was gray and bluer than the blue velvet of the book at the fair. The trees were gray knives pointed at him. The fence rippled like waves on the water. His fingers bled and bled and bled.  


He realized the laughter had been Ryan’s.  


“No,” he said, struggling. “No. I - no.”  


The bookseller turned, her breathing labored, the corners of her mouth lifted in satisfaction. Her hands were gray with ash.  


“I wouldn’t--” she began, but a moment too late. Michael had already looked at the mess of his hands. She was right: he shouldn’t have. He slipped down the length of the fencepost and didn’t feel himself hit the ground.  



	3. A Mind Undone, A Silly, Dazzled Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael meets the Archivist's apprentice.

It wasn’t the Shepards’ dray. Michael knew how it felt to lay on the sun-warmed boards of Ryan’s family’s cart, with just the wooden boards between himself and the moving ground beneath. This wasn’t it. 

_a green sky that melted in strands of burnt syrupy saliva ___

__Michael half-screamed and struggled to stand, and immediately hit his head on the roof of the vehicle. This fresh pain, atop two or three others, sank him back into the seat and he slumped forward, face in hands, until his shredded fingers made him lift his heavy head again._ _

__It hurt, apparently, to move, so he tried to sit very still, conscious of a slow and noxious sensation down one side of his body._ _

__He was in a close, dark old carriage, moving at a clip through a slate-and-brick city, the sky full of rain (gray, cloud-studded, nothing but normal) past the rooftops. The movement only made the growing sick sensation worse, so he focused on not losing his stomach in the enclosed space._ _

__Through the front window of the brougham, the bookseller cast a rapid glance backwards at him. Her mouth made the shape of a swear and the carriage picked up pace. Michael’s stomach complained and he slumped sidelong, his head thumping against the tepid window._ _

__He was glad they were close._ _

___thin wooden door opening like the long thin peel of a lemon into the pith of forgettances and the refusal of repentance_ _ _

__A stab of pain through his temple like an icepick and he groaned again. “I,” he said, meaning to call to the bookseller, but with no true idea what he’d say. He didn’t know her name or where they were, mostly, until he did, but then it slipped away - and he didn’t know why he hurt or why his hands were bleeding or why, oh, why, it felt like he was opening up, crooking outward on a hinge with his insides slowly slipping out onto the seat beside him, which was nevertheless clean of blood and viscera, even though he could see it, he _knew_ \--_ _

__The carriage stopped. A thrum of dread twisted Michael’s stomach again. Could he run? Why would he run? He wanted to run. Away from the tall, toothy-looking building of dark stone and heavy iron fastenings outside, all the windows shuttered and barred. It looked like it was trying to exist as a cold and invisible force, the way a January wind is the meanest thing you’ll never see biting you._ _

__The bookseller opened the carriage door and Michael spilled out, a collection of limbs and aching nerves. Ignoring the fall and his noises of pain - even Michael barely heard himself - the bookseller heaved him upright, if not on his feet, and dragged him towards the building._ _

__Something in Michael revolted. He found his feet and dug them into the stone of the street, but she dragged him onwards anyway, up the steps until she could rap the door knocker with one hand, the other holding him by the back of his shirt._ _

__“Wait,” he said, trying to hold himself closed, “wait, I don’t - what are - the Shepards, Ryan, are they--”_ _

__The bookseller hammered the door knocker again, four crisp raps that made Michael’s headache waver like a harped chord. “The Shepards know,” she said without turning her head. “They understand.”_ _

__“Under-- understand?” Weakly, Michael wriggled in her grasp, but his head and his hands hurt too much to bother for long. “ _I_ don’t understand.”_ _

__“Shocking.”_ _

__He stared at her. He was bleeding on her, he was sure, from where he still hung ajar, from the crown of his head to his knees. Probably lower. He couldn’t look that far down without falling._ _

__She turned yellow as a canary and Michael screamed. The bookseller just tightened her grip and knocked at the door again. On the street, a passing man and woman shot them knowing glances._ _

__“Where in hell--” the bookseller grumbled, and resorted to kicking the door with her heavy boot. “They hemorrhage assistants almost as quick as Leitner but for God’s sake--”_ _

__“I think I’m going to die,” Michael said, at some distance from himself, and then the door to the cruel building opened like a mouth beneath a dozen stoppered eyes._ _

__Michael laughed helplessly in the second before his vision cleared._ _

__In the doorway was a small, slim man who had just moments before been wrapped in the soft, fragile wingstuff of a moth, chrysalised in it. It was gone now, leaving just the tidy little man, in clothes that were a little too big. They weren’t ill-fitting as much as they were cozy, in shades of brown and burgundy. There was a smattering of scars down one side of his face until they disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt, pale purplish against brown skin._ _

__What had been so funny? Michael couldn’t remember. He almost grabbed at the man’s face, bodily seizing the lost memory._ _

__The bookseller said, “About time.”_ _

__The man, eyes wide and mouth twisted, stared at Michael for a heartbeat before turning to the bookseller. “What are you doing here? With… him?”_ _

__His voice was a bucket of disgust. Michael felt himself shrink._ _

__“You know him?” the bookseller asked, curiously vindicated. “Never mind, it’ll keep. We had an emergency.”_ _

__The man didn’t move from the door, or even open it wider to allow them in. Michael found himself staring at the hinges, the places where the nails burrowed deep into wood, and sympathizing. “But why you? It’s usually… someone else.”_ _

__“I was on hand. So to speak. He’s getting heavy, Mr. Sims.”_ _

__The man hesitated a beat longer. His attention was like two hummingbirds, darting between the bookseller and Michael, colorful, blurred with speed, quite pretty. Again Michael would have reached out if he weren’t so loaded down with weariness._ _

__“I’ll take him,” the man decided, and stepped past the threshold, reaching for Michael. His hands were unbloody. “You can wait.”_ _

__“Not very hospitable,” the bookseller said, without sounding surprised. “Fine. I’ll stay to take him back.”_ _

__“You’ll stay outside.”_ _

__“Yes, yes. Hurry, he’s...” The bookseller gestured vaguely to Michael’s hands. “...leaking.”_ _

__She had no idea. Michael giggled faintly as she passed him to the man - Mr. Sims? - who pushed his shoulder under Michael’s arm to support him without having to haul him like a bag of loose bones, which was close to what Michael felt like, give or take a tear in the bag or two._ _

__“I’ll have someone come to bill you,” the man said, and then kicked the door shut with a thunderous clap before she could respond._ _

__Abruptly, the world was dark and cool: thick swathes of brownish-gray, near to black, coated this entryway and the hallways Mr. Sims guided Michael down. None of the windows were open and the air had a stale, sealed-in flavor. Sometimes Michael heard the flutter of wings and would jerk in Mr. Sims’s grasp to follow the sound, but there was always nothing, never anything but shadows in the shelves across the walls._ _

__“Empty,” Michael murmured, reaching out one throbbing hand to a shelf that oozed past. A drop of blood fell from his fingertip to the cold floor._ _

__Mr. Sims said nothing. Once in a while, Michael felt the man’s eyes on him. It was so hard to focus on anything, but feeling that gaze made him try, and then the pain came back, breaking through the giddy clouds that had softened the world around him. He hurt and he was open and a yellow door had called him by name with Ryan’s throat, a yellow door with something in it._ _

__By the time Mr. Sims had pulled Michael into a small, comfortably furnished room, thick with rugs and years’ worth of tea fumes, the clouds had dispersed almost entirely, and Michael could feel himself shivering, his jaw set against the pain in his hands. Only now did he realize they were wrapped in shreds of handkerchiefs, which must have been why they did so little to stem the bleeding._ _

__“Mr. Shelley,” Mr. Sims said, lowering Michael into an overstuffed chair, “I know you need to be bound, but I think your hands should be taken care of first. The pain might… remind you, once the binding is complete.”_ _

__“Bound…?” Michael gripped the arms of the chair, leaving bloodstains on the burgundy upholstery. That was where she’d brought him. She’d mentioned it at the fair. Thinking he’d been before. “No, it’s a mistake, I didn’t--”_ _

__He jumped up again, trembling harder, and tried once more to pin himself back together, to keep from bleeding onto the chair from his ribcage and throat. Mr. Sims backpedaled, wary._ _

__The whole room sucked in yellow, suffusing itself with a sunflower shade that hurt Michael’s eyes. He pressed his bloody hands to them, digging the heels of his palms in until that hurt even more._ _

__It hadn’t been so strange, had it? A yellow door, left in a clearing in the woods, couldn’t be that bad. Someone renovating their house. An eccentric old rich man who didn’t care to dispose of his home’s accoutrements in the usual way. Michael didn’t need to be bound. She couldn’t bring him here like this, drop him in a binder’s lap like his soul meant nothing. He didn’t need to be bound. He’d never been bound, shouldn’t need it now, it was just a door, just a door, just a yellow door._ _

__Tentative, hopeful, Michael lowered his hands, and saw everything through a haze of dripping, breathing gold._ _

__He sank back into the chair, silent and shaking so hard he thought the chair’s carved wooden legs would rattle against the floor._ _

__“Mr. Shelley,” Mr. Sims said cautiously._ _

__Michael looked up at him. He held a small tray full of basic medical supplies, all of which were melting into a single oozing mass of metal and fibers. It smelled like burning leather._ _

__But when he met Mr. Sims’s eyes, the supplies turned into supplies again, shifting back in Michael’s peripheral vision, and his sense of smell cleared._ _

__He dragged in a shaking, damp breath and nodded his permission._ _

__Mr. Sims drew up a stool beside the chair and took Michael’s left wrist in hand, holding it light but steady as he peeled away the bloody scraps of handkerchiefs. A curl of disgust lifted his lips, but his voice was as professional as ever as he said, “Ms. Robinson’s methods are nothing if not consistent.”_ _

__Michael wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was focusing too hard on Mr. Sims’s face to reply. When Mr. Sims started cleaning the wounds in Michael’s fingers, his cheeks went a little green, but he didn’t ask what had happened; Michael was as relieved as he was confused, since he wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer. Splinters, he imagined saying, which set free the nervous laughter again, and he had to resist the urge to cover his mouth and thereby yank his hands from Mr. Sims’s grasp. He pressed his chin into his shoulder instead, for as long as he could manage tearing his attention from Mr. Sims. When the room started to bubble at the corners, like it was a smoldering photograph, Michael swallowed his nerves and looked back._ _

__Mr. Sims didn’t so much as raise his head as he worked, leaving Michael free to focus on his face. He wasn’t literally unhinged when he focused on the slight bump in Mr. Sims’s nose, he wasn’t bleeding from his whole ribcage when he counted the number of pockmark scars around Mr. Sims’s cheeks and jaw (twenty-seven), and nothing was melting or burning or slowly, slowly, slowly swelling in size when his attention was on the messy, overlong strands of Mr. Sims’s dark hair, already sparsely silvered._ _

__When Mr. Sims was done, Michael thought he could have painted his portrait from memory, if he’d had any artistic talent. Though the idea of having memory in the first place seemed like a tall order._ _

__“All right.” Mr. Sims set the tray of bloody fabric and soiled tools aside, then stood and reached for his own handkerchief, doused in something that smelled clinical, factual, clean. Wiping his hands with it, he went on, “I think you should be ready.”_ _

__“Ready,” Michael repeated, and his nerves returned. He looked down at his fingers, the clean, snug bandages. They itched already, edged with yellow. His stomach flipped and he snapped his attentions back to Mr. Sims. “I - I don’t know. I’ve never…”_ _

__Mr. Sims gave him a quick glance, almost entirely expressionless. The edge of the expression he _did_ have made Michael stop._ _

__“I’ve never,” he repeated, and heard the question in his voice._ _

__“Every binding is the first, Mr. Shelley,” Mr. Sims said, which sounded like canned lies if Michael had ever heard one._ _

__Michael squeezed his knees together. “The bookseller… she mentioned…”_ _

__Mr. Sims’s mouth made that curling shape again and he turned away, towards a table near the smoldering fireplace. Had Michael noticed there was a fire in the grate until now? He hadn’t noticed that his left leg was burning up. He shifted away from the fireplace and its bright yellow coals and said, “I thought I would have remembered.”_ _

__“That is the point of the binding.”_ _

__“Well - well - yes…” Michael let his attention slip from Mr. Sims’s face and the fire began to spread, out from the grate with golden fingers and creeping up the leg of his chair, burning through his pants cuff. Michael managed not to scream but still made a puff of panicked noise, scrambling from the chair and swatting at his clothes, the chair, everywhere it burned--_ _

__Mr. Sims seized his wrists again, and the fire vanished, except where it still burned lowly, sanely, in the grate._ _

__Michael looked down into Mr. Sims’s eyes. Mr. Sims was, comparatively, short, but he held himself like a cat would, with puffed fur and impeccable posture to make up for everything else._ _

__“Mr. Shelley,” he said without letting go. “You have had an experience with a Power that you can’t understand. This particular Power contaminates your mind, specifically, and… and mimics the effects of, or fully causes, madness. I can take that memory from you, and store it in a book, and you will be able to think clearly again. Without being bound, it’s hard to say exactly how long you’ll be… functional, but it won’t be long. Now, I realize the reputation the Magnus Archivery has obtained, but you can, at least, consider us the lesser of two evils. With a binder’s help, you’ll be able to survive.”_ _

__Michael stared at the hands wrapped around the base of his own._ _

__“It was just a yellow door,” he whispered. “It shouldn’t have…”_ _

__Mr. Sims drew back. Michael couldn’t look away from the pink stripes where Mr. Sims had held him still, already fading as he watched._ _

__“Take a seat, Mr. Shelley,” he said, a shade too competent to be gentle. “I’ll need your consent before we start.”_ _

__Michael remembered seeing his body fall open the way a door tipped wide in a breeze, the way the yellow door had opened onto... something... without a hand to explain why. The skin of his left calf still stung, though the fire had never existed to touch him._ _

__You smell like the Archivery, the bookseller had said, as the Archivist’s apprentice’s book had stained his hands blue. Was Mr. Sims the Archivist, or the apprentice?_ _

__Michael sat one more time, and this time, Mr. Sims must have seen the acceptance on Michael’s face, because he pulled up another chair - thinly upholstered, upright and stiff - close by, close enough for the arms to touch, if Mr. Sims’s had had arms._ _

__“All right,” Michael said with a tear in his voice. “You can take it. I don’t care what it does to me. If you can make it stop… make it stop.”_ _

__Mr. Sims nodded calmly. “Then I’ll take your statement for the binding,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”_ _

__+_ _

__A woman with iron-gray hair was there to take him home._ _

__“The Shepards sent me,” she explained, when Mr. Sims led Michael out. “Come along. They’ll be waiting.”_ _

__“Be very careful,” Mr. Sims said tersely, and it took Michael a moment to realize he was talking to the old woman, not to Michael._ _

__The old woman smirked and guided Michael to the door of the brougham. “Aren’t I always, Jonathan.”_ _

__Mr. Sims looked like he’d sucked on a lemon. It made Michael want to smile, but he was too tired to do much besides pull himself into the carriage. The old woman had to close the door herself; his bandaged hands, sore as they were, sat like useless lumps in his lap. He wondered what he’d done to them before remembering what Mr. Sims had told him on the way out of the parlor: “You burned them. A mishap with the oil lamp.”_ _

__Of course._ _

__He remembered watching through the carriage window as Mr. Sims bothered with the cuff of one immaculate sleeve, holding eye contact, his expression too distant to read. And then Michael was asleep, and nothing touched the still darkness of his thoughts until the old woman woke him, back at the Shepards’._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that Archivery isn't a word, and also that it sounds silly. It just sounds more like a Bindery that way, and more fantastical, and I like it. Please let me have a small dumb thing. :>


	4. For The Body At Best Is A Bundle Of Aches...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael is sick again, and again, and again.

Michael was ill again by the next morning. It ran its course as usual: he was almost insensible for most of it, the two weeks or so passing in dark blotches, very occasionally stabbed through with an agonizing brightness in which he heard his own voice, incoherent and too loud. Then one of the Shepards would come and administer... something, he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t even sure whether or not he swallowed it until the brightness faded and he was submerged again.

The wounds on his fingers wouldn’t heal. The few times he could see when he woke, he saw blood on his hands and on the blanket. He’d have to buy a new one; when he was well again and washing his bedclothes, the stains wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t ruined, and he still could have used it, but the stains stayed red as cherries, instead of darkening to dull brown, and the vividness of the color made him uneasy. He didn’t even put it in his color diary, which had, again, been subject to a blurry ruination. The last color he’d noted was gone.

He spent almost an hour with the diary in his lap, considering the grayed-out blob on the page and the saturation of the blood on his blanket. The idea of transferring the red, writing down where it had come from and why, made him so tired he was almost nauseated again.

On a whim one afternoon, he burned both the blanket and the diary, and stood over the fire warming his sore, bandaged fingers. He spent the hour considering the bandages, trying to recall what he’d done. Something about tools, he thought, which seemed logical, since he was on a farm. 

He should have been satisfied, but he was still too tired for that much emotion. At best he was relieved. God, he hoped he didn’t get sick like that again soon. It felt like it chipped a piece off him every time. He wasn’t sure he’d have anything left to give, soon.

A month or so later, Michael was tidying his room, dusting and sweeping and otherwise making himself scarce from the rest of the house, when he pushed the broom underneath the bed and heard paper rustle.

His whole body went stiff. There was almost no paper in the house whatsoever; Mr. Shepard had a particular hatred of anything in the area of books. That was why he’d stowed his diary in such a terrible spot.

He blew a stray strand of hair from his face and slowly straightened, bringing the broom head out from under the bedframe. The scrape of paper against wood continued the whole time, until a single page was revealed, smutty and faded from the dust and ashes that had collected beneath the mattress. As soon as he saw it, Michael relaxed: it was a piece of paper from his color diary. There were no illicit books being stashed in his room he didn’t know about. His diary had never been of a particularly high quality; no surprise that a page or two fell out every once in a while.

He unfolded the page in one hand, leaning on the broom with the other, and studied the colorless smudge with its illegible notations. It had the faintest green tinge, sage-adjacent. It was a lovely color, insofar as Michael could see it. 

_I shouldn’t have burned it,_ he thought, touching the dim little blurb of almost-color.

He set the page beneath a vase beneath his room’s only window, and determined to buy a locket the next time he was asked to go to town.

There was a bookseller’s stall in the town market, almost two months later. Michael felt his mouth twist when he saw the slouching stacks of books, all in poisonous colors like evil little frogs. They hurt his head to look at. 

The bookseller was an old woman who flicked an iron glance towards him once and then returned to her book, reading a soul like it was hers for the consumption. Mr. Shepard snapped Michael’s name and Michael jerked his attention back to them, Mr. Shepard and the other two hands who’d come to town. 

The scrap of paper in Michael’s pocket crinkled with each step, but so softly that only Michael could hear its sage-green whisper. When he, along with the other men, passed through the thicker parts of the market crowd, though, he lost its sound among all the other, louder ones, and when they were getting ready to leave, burdened down with supplies, Michael felt the pocket for the texture of the note, and found nothing.

“Wait, wait,” he mumbled, mostly to himself at first, digging for the paper now, but his pocket was empty. “Wait, I lost--”

“This is yours, I think.”

Michael spun around and looked directly into the face of the bookseller, her hand outstretched to him. The other two farm hands’ conversation dropped off a cliff and Mr. Shepard stiffened, his face turning the same shade of dangerous as hurricane clouds. 

Michael’s gaze dropped down to her proferred hand, in which sat his wrinkled, dirt-stained diary page, folded crisp and tidy. He took it without looking at it again, stuffing it into his pocket. “Thanks,” he said, and added unnecessarily, “I must have dropped it.”

Her fingers were cold and dry, which could also be said for her expression. “Must have,” she said.

“Come on,” Mr. Shepard said, and Michael felt fingers close around his upper arm, yanking him backwards between the two farm hands. “Home’ll be waiting.”

When they got home, and Michael was safely squirreled into his room, he unfolded the page to study the blot of almost-green, and, though something else fell from the page’s folds, onto the mattress, his attention was on the page. The faded blob of color was full green again, brightly sage, almost too vivid to be real. They reminded him of the bookseller’s wares, but this was better, natural, real. Michael touched the scribbled color, but it was just pencil, or whatever he’d used to copy it down. 

After catching his breath, Michael turned to the thing that had fallen from the page. It was a card: fine quality, creamy white with a single, horizontal golden line, across the center. Above the line was the name, in spiky capitals, THE MAGNUS ARCHIVERY. Beneath it was JONATHAN SIMS, in more modest size and style. 

Michael felt the thump of his heart in his skull. It didn’t hurt at first, but the longer it went on, the more it did. He tossed the card away from him and it landed somewhere on the floor, he didn’t care where, and sank down on his bed.

_Something is wrong,_ he thought. Once, twice, a hundred times, a tattoo keeping the beat with his headache.

“Two of them are gone,” Michael said, raking a hand through his hair and ripping through tangles in his curls. “I can’t find them, I’ve looked, I’ve counted, but I can’t--”

The farmhand cut him off with a grunt. “They’re all here.”

Michael stared at him, then out at the small flock of sheep, grazing content and unbothered. Michael knew how many there were supposed to be, and two were missing. He’d counted three times, more panicked each time.

The farmhand counted out loud, so Michael could watch his finger bob between the sheep and hear the correct number at the end. The last two sheep weren’t even out of sight, just wandered off together near the bottom of this valley. 

“It’s fine,” the farmhand said, unable to disguise the impatience in his voice. He’d been the first one Michael had found when he’d discovered the missing sheep. “They’re all here and that’s what matters. Just... look closer next time. Something wrong with your eyes?”

No, there wasn’t.

Jonathan Sims’s card showed up everywhere. Michael had tucked it under his mattress after he threw it - at least he thought he had - but it would flutter to the ground out of nowhere, no matter where he went, as if he’d slipped it into his pocket insecurely, and it’d finally wriggled free.

The third time he hid it under his mattress, he said out loud, “I am putting this under my mattress. I didn’t _think_ I did but forget, I didn’t mean to but never get around, I didn’t let it slip out. I’m putting this under my mattress.”

It calmed him for a full day before he found it in the stables, pristine amidst the muck.

Every time he found it again, the throbbing headache came back, and the fear of Mr. Shepard finding it came back, too. The Archivery name was too big not to notice, even for someone whose reading skills were as basic as Mr. Shepard’s. 

Michael tried to rip the card once. It shredded satisfactorily in his hands, and he looked at the pieces in his palms, trying to be relieved and failing. Then he went to sleep, woke up, and found the card atop one of his boots. He yanked away from the boots so hard he fell over. “I did,” he said to himself, remembering so clearly the feeling of tearing the card into pieces. How it had hurt the still-tender scars on his fingers. _It happened, I did do it, it’s--_

He didn’t know what it was. 

Michael was in and out of bed with a mild form of his sickness, too lethargic to work even though autumn was a busy time for the Shepards. He would have felt worse about it if he didn’t seem to do his work wrong most of the time anyway. At least in bed the only thing he ate was scraps from the table, too nauseated most days to keep anything else down.

On the first day of October, Michael was done with his room, his bed, his body, his headaches, and Jonathan Sims’s card. He staggered out of the house before dawn, bundled in both of his coats, a scarf, and a hat, and went wandering, idiotically, through the near-dark of the farm, the cold stinging at his throat and lungs. The card was in his outer coat pocket.

It felt dangerous, and Michael, shivering, watching his breath puff up in front of him, didn’t dislike it.

His feet took him to the graveyard. By the time he got there, the headstones were barely visible, limned with the thinnest promise of dawn. Michael thumped down in front of Ryan’s stone and caught his breath.

Then he took out the card. “You need to keep this,” he said, feeling silly and serious all at once. “I can’t get rid of it otherwise. It keeps coming back when I throw it away or hide it or...” He sighed. “Doesn’t matter.”

He sat a while, turning the card over and over in his hands. It didn’t matter, did it? Not really. So what if it kept coming back to him. So what if he was just that stupid, or that damaged in the head. So?

“I miss you,” Michael said quietly, and looked up to see his own name on the headstone.

He sat very still. The hard edge of the card cut into his fingertips. The pain made him blink. The headstone said _Ryan Shepard._

“See?” he said, slowly reaching out to lay the card on the ground, just beneath Ryan’s proper name. 

He wondered if Ryan had ever felt like this, before Ryan was gone.

How had Ryan gone again? Horrified, Michael realized he couldn’t remember. What was the last thing they’d said to each other? 

This - this was too far. Whatever was wrong with him, it could take whatever it wanted - up until it got to Ryan. Then - then--

“What are you doing?”

Michael scrambled to turn, scuttling backwards at the same time to evade the owner of the deep voice behind him. He’d expected someone bigger, but in the dim pre-dawn light, the man was small, portly, with gangly limbs; his wrists thrust awkwardly from the too-short coat sleeves, though his clothes themselves seemed fine enough.

Michael didn’t recognize him. Had never seen him in town, or on the road. Did that mean anything, or was it just one more thing Michael was losing?

Uncertain, Michael said, “Excuse me?”

The man didn’t repeat his question, smiling instead. His skin was pink and shiny, as if he’d exerted himself to get here. How had he gotten here? This was a family plot. Maybe he was a member of the extended Shepard family. Michael hadn’t been around the household long enough lately to know if they were expecting--

“Don’t let me stop you talking,” the man said cordially, moving to another of the headstones, a small-ish one. “I just came to check in.”

“Check in...?” Michael blinked, but forced his limbs to relax. Check in on a lost relative, no doubt. Odd time to do it, but if he was family...

“It’s following you, you know,” the man continued, conversational as ever. He patted the little stone and suddenly it was yellow, the fake, unreal color of a child’s toy. Michael went rigid again. “A lovely corkscrew all around this area. It may be the lost boy’s influence, who am I to say?” He drew his hand away from the stone and yellow followed like a sticky, oozing candy, lingering in the air. “But it does want you.”

Michael tasted something sour, metallic, and raw shifting on his tongue, and his fingers ached. When he shifted backwards an inch, it was in the wrong direction, and Michael was suddenly at the man’s feet, his hands dirty as if he’d crawled through mud to get there. The man smiled down at him, the way Michael imagined a father would, if a father had been turned inside out like a puppet being sewn together. The fingers of his left hand were bleeding again.

“Mmm, not ready yet,” the man said, passing a clump of yellow from hand to hand as it leaked all down his forearms, slicing his coat sleeves to ribbons and sewing them up again with the opposite of fabric. Michael wanted to be sick. “Not for joining us. But good enough for a snack--”

The final word came on a kind of hungry gurgle, as the man’s teeth sharpened and his tongue and gums and lips turned to teeth, too, though Michael couldn’t pick out details: they were just a sharpened white blur in the darkness. It seemed correct and proper, not odd at all, for a single, blinding second, and then Michael was himself again, and there was blood all over his left hand.

The card. He’d gripped it so tightly it had sliced into the scars on his fingertips. No cardstock should have been that sharp. Michael didn’t question it, with so much else to question: he thrust his fingertips into his mouth instead, tasting the flat, earthy taste of blood. 

He tasted green, too. The sage green from his journal page. It tasted like... generosity. And kindness. And safety. _The Archivery. Jonathan Sims._

It wasn’t the same as having the Archivist’s apprentice there, but Michael remembered how the apprentice’s gaze had cleared the madness, and for a heartbeat, he remembered the color of the apprentice’s eyes. And the blood was just blood, the man was just a man, and the tombstone was just a tombstone, and Michael was capable of running from them, so he did. 

Behind him, the man laughed, gurgling and yellow. 

Michael didn’t stop running at the Shepard’s farm.


	5. Familiar Things Grown Strange To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael meets the Archivist's apprentice... again.

Michael didn’t knock, just grabbed the heavy door handles and heaved. Nothing happened; the Archivery was, apparently, locked from the inside. He threw himself backwards anyway, the edges of the metal handles digging into his sore hands. The heels of his shoes crunched in the grit of the stone landing.

Footsteps behind him? Michael spun, the handles digging into his spine as he pressed backwards. No one was behind him except the passersby on the street, the ones he’d seen before. Before. The last time. At least the last time. There had been... something. Yellow. His hands. Before. Ryan had been there.

_Ryan--_

A door! There had been a door. Michael felt the handles of the doors behind him like the barrel of an enormous gun. He leapt away, almost fell down the steps. The door was normal - bleak, iron-barred, gray in the late autumn evening - but so were most things before they weren’t. Before. 

The bookseller--

Everyone he knew was trying to kill him. Or involve him in this. Doors, melting, senses not making sense. Memories out of place and altogether gone. Ryan’s death a blank, the yellow door like the glare in his eyes after staring at the sun. Blinking just made it worse. He felt like he’d be sick on the steps of the Archivery.

How had he gotten here? His knees wobbled and he almost sat there where he stood, between the street and the doors that might turn yellow at any second.

Instead, the doors opened like... doors.

“I thought I heard someone,” someone said. Michael scraped sweaty hair away from his face and looked up, one scratched hand still covering his mouth.

A woman heaved one door open, propping it that way with a booted foot. She wore her hair in a dark braided crown. Deep brown eyes, a curious smile, a fire iron in one hand, a half-eaten pastry in the other. A heavy wrap, though it wasn’t that cold out. 

“You’re here for a binding?” she asked, lifting the pastry to her lips. Then she lowered it again quick, as if she hadn’t realized she was about to eat it. 

Michael stared at her, then beyond her into the building. He still felt sick - still heard his brain crashing around his skull like it’d been stirred - but he recognized the inside of the Archivery, and he could remember how it felt to stand on its floors. 

He eased closer, pushed one hand into his pocket, then held out the card the bookseller had given him. “I need to speak to him,” he said, impressed with how coherent he sounded.

The woman took the card with the same hand as the fire iron. Scanned it. Raised her head again, shifting her foot against the heavy door, and squinted at him. “Oh,” she said, and looked like she would have snapped her fingers if her fingers hadn’t been occupied. “What’s your name?”

God, he didn’t know. It was all yellowmelt and blurred tasteless color up there. He shook his head and said the first name that came to mind: “Ryan. Wait. No, no, no. Jonathan. No--”

For the first time, her smile faltered. Handing the card back to him - she eyed the cuts on his hands as he took it - she said, “Come in. You can wait in his office.”

The heavy warm darkness of the Archivery settled on his shoulders as soon as he stepped through. The woman put her crumbling pastry on a nearby shelf, resettled her grip on the fire iron, and said, “It’s this way, you can follow me.”

“Thank you, I know,” he said, though he didn’t, though he sort of did - an overlay, a memory of sand. She paused, glanced back at him, and reached into the pocket attached to her skirt for a pair of glasses. Settling them on her nose, she made her way from the entrance of the building down a hallway, down another hall, took a turn down another hall...

A yellow door. A yellow door. A golden throat. Down into a glistening sunflower stomach.

“This isn’t it,” he heard himself whispering. “This isn’t it,” again, as the shelves shifted, imperceptible but unmistakable. “Where are you--”

The squeak of hinges brought him back to himself, the hallway to the cozy set of rooms he remembered now, he was sure, the carpet and the chair and the fire and the-- 

“Here he is,” the woman said, waving the iron in the direction of the door that had just opened, the normal one where a normal man was waiting, a normal man Michael recognized incontrovertibly. His knees almost gave out from relief.

The man in his cozily ill-fitting clothes was hard to see in the ill-lit corridor, but his expression was still uncertain in the gloom as he looked from Michael to the woman. “Sasha,” he said, “you could have called.”

“I... hmm,” the woman - Sasha - said, setting her iron-occupied fist on her hip. “It felt like a Situation.”

A Situation. Michael laughed weakly. They both looked at him - unfathomable binders’ thoughts in their heads, no doubt - then turned back to each other.

“I thought,” Sasha said, carefully casual, “we just--”

“It’s very recent,” Jonathan Sims agreed, his brows beetling, “but then, Robinson was involved last time, so there really is no telling what’s gone wrong.”

Sasha wrinkled her nose. She reached out to Michael but he shied away, and she raised both hands in apology, including the iron in the gesture. “Well,” she told him, taking an extra step away, “here’s Jon, he’ll take care of you. Maybe. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

“Yes,” Jonathan Sims said, sounding very sure of himself. “Mr. Shelley.”

Shelley didn’t sound right, but Jonathan Sims was looking at him, so he went like a moth to the flame. It sounded more right the closer he got. When he was almost too close, he saw Mr. Sims’s eyes. They were green. A particular green. He’d held onto the green of Mr. Sims’s eyes.

Michael relaxed for no particular reason, except the din in his head was quieter now. He turned to thank Sasha over his shoulder and barely heard his own voice, but Sasha smiled at him, waggling the iron in a wave.

“Be nice, Jon,” she said. “And be... careful.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“To a fault!”

She turned and moved back down the corridor, soon lost in the gloom. Mr. Sims cleared his throat and gestured into the study, which Michael remembered, though he couldn’t remember getting there last time. Before. “After you.”

Michael shuffled into the study, holding onto his fear. Without it, he felt foolish. It was, suddenly, too easy to think he’d been overreacting, oversensitive, now that his head was quiet and the man in the cemetery seemed like a bad dream. He was almost frighteningly lucid. He was Michael Shelley and he had snuck onto the back of a cart heading into the city to get to the Archivery and--

Before. He had been here before. Because he’d lost his head before.

“Mr. Sims,” he said, turning to face the binder again, “I - I have your card.”

Mr. Sims blinked once. “Ah,” he said. “Mr. Shelley, you--” Another quick blink, and then Mr. Sims went to the fireplace, poking at it with an iron that matched the one Sasha had been protecting herself with. “This is... out of the ordinary.”

“A Situation.” Michael started to wring his hands, then realized that to do so would hurt.

A flicker of amusement crossed Mr. Sims’s scarred face. “Yes. You’re alone, for one thing. Most people in line to be bound don’t come alone.”

Michael couldn’t keep his hands still. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to sit yet. Even though it hurt, he started kneading his scarf between both hands. “Last time the bookseller brought me,” he said. “You recognized me.”

Mr. Sims gave him a quick glance, unreadable. “It’s against policy to discuss hypothetical previous... engagements with the Archivery.”

“No, no, I remember - I remember, you bound me, Mr. Sims, I was here for a binding, you took something from me--”

Mr. Sims winced slightly.

“--and the bookseller brought me because it was...” Michael trailed off. He heard Ryan calling to him again and jerked, listening close - maybe Ryan was outside in the hall - before realizing it had been a memory of the yellow door. “And I’ve been before that. I remember, Mr. Sims, please, just - just tell me.”

Mr. Sims, fully frowning by now, must have realized they were both standing. “Here, sit,” he said, half distracted as he waved to the plush armchair Michael had sat in last time. The idea made Michael uneasy.

“You can’t bind me without consent,” he said, glancing down at his scarf. He expected to see blood on it by now, but the cuts were staying clean for now.

“What? No, of course not. It’s just - you’re very pale. You don’t look well.”

“I - I don’t feel well, so I guess it suits,” Michael said, trying for another laugh and sounding absolutely wretched. Mr. Sims’s attempt at smiling back was equally so. Michael went to sit with the last of his dignity intact, and instead collapsed like the muscles in his legs had been slashed. 

Mr. Sims set a pot over the fire, presumably water for tea, and Michael took a second to wonder at the setup before Mr. Sims asked, “What happened? The binding - it was close to the one you’d had before, but it should have held. It’s only been a few months. How can you remember anything about it?”

Michael tried to explain the series of events - the color diary, the bookseller, the man in the cemetery at Ryan’s grave - but even when he went very slow and picked out each word with obsessive care, it still sounded like gibberish. It sounded like the account of a hypochondriac, someone needlessly paranoid, not someone in any real danger. The farther Michael dug himself into his statement, the more the feeling of foolishness returned, intensified, took over. By the end, Michael couldn’t look Mr. Sims in the eye.

Mr. Sims, for his part, was silent the whole way through. He was silent for another solid minute after Michael finished and the only sound was the fire crackling, the water beginning to boil, and Michael worrying at his scarf. 

“Following you, it said,” Mr. Sims said under his breath, as if to himself.

Michael nodded. 

Mr. Sims raised his head, looking surprised to see that Michael was still there. “This,” he said, and paused before finishing, “isn’t an isolated incident. Anyone can be bound, for any reason, but the Magnus Archivery tends to attract... subjects like you.”

“Like me? People chased by... by doors that aren’t doors?”

“People who are chased,” Mr. Sims said, “by any number of... ah... phenomena. Like the doors.” He stood and went to a desk in the darkest corner of the room. Michael hadn’t noticed it before. Rifling through one of the lower side drawers, Mr. Sims asked, “Are you sure that you give consent to discuss previous bindings? Something’s broken the last one, so our privacy policy doesn’t technically stand any longer, but you don’t remember... any binding or bindings before that, so I have to ask.”

“Yes.” Michael leaned forward, digging his fingernails into his knees. “Please, Mr. Sims. Something’s chasing me and I don’t know why or what to do about it. It’s - it’s been doing it for months.”

Mr. Sims’s face made that non-expression, the tightening of impassivity, and Michael’s heart sank. 

“How many?” he asked, barely able to lift his voice above a whisper. “Please.”

Mr. Sims straightened and nudged the drawer shut with his knee. Whatever he cradled in his left hand was too small for Michael to see from so far away. “You don’t have the most bindings that the Magnus Archivery has seen - not even close,” he said. “But you have the most bindings that I’ve done for a single person. I think the last time you were here with Rob-- Ms. Robinson - the bookseller - was the thirteenth.”

Michael absorbed the number, unsure how else to respond. Thirteen. Thirteen bits of his soul gone, according to the villagers, or thirteen promises to the devils of hell. Thirteen experiences drawn from his head like thread on a spindle. 

“Were they all the... the yellow door?” he asked when he could find his tongue again.

The kettle over the fire didn’t whistle, but steam began to plume from its spout. Mr. Sims tucked whatever he’d taken from the desk into his pocket, then moved to the fireplace, taking the kettle from the hook with the fire iron. “Most. All but the first.”

“The first?”

“Mr. Shelley, I really shouldn’t say anything else.” Wrapping the kettle’s handle in a towel, Mr. Sims poured the water into a waiting teapot nearby. “Not without speaking to my - ah - supervisor first. I... this may have happened before I came here but it hasn’t before. I’m not sure...” Frustration pinched his features before his professionalism smoothed it over again. Michael almost missed the little inhale Mr. Sims took before splashing water from the pot into two cups. “We need to avoid causing more damage.”

“Oh.” Michael licked his lips, uncertain. “All right. Of course. I’m - I’m sorry.” 

Mr. Sims’s frustration shifted into discomfort. “Apologies are hardly necessary.”

Michael didn’t know what to say to that besides another sorry, which was Hardly Necessary. He took the cup and didn’t ask for sugar, even though he hated tea without it. Mr. Sims didn’t touch his tea, either, and didn’t take his seat, hovering around the room like a silent, uncertain moth.

“But what do I do?” Michael asked, a little louder than he’d meant. Mr. Sims jumped, turning back to him. “I can’t just - bind it away again, it’ll come back. It’s going to come back every time, isn’t it?”

“It does seem like it.”

Michael felt himself start to tremble again. The tea sloshed over the edge of the cup and burned his fingers; he hissed a curse when his jerk of pain made more tea spill. “Dammit,” he repeated, hating the lump in his throat that made his voice sound weepy. He wouldn’t cry now. “Do I just - j-just go back and wait to go out of my mind? I almost didn’t make it here. I can’t go back, Mr. Sims, I can’t go back and wait.”

“Of - of course not,” Mr. Sims said, surprised through his discomfort. He set his cup aside and, matter-of-factly, took the cup of spilled tea out of Michael’s grasp. Michael’s hands hung in the air, useless and empty. “No, we have rooms here for... Situations like this. I think I mentioned before, you’re not the first.”

“...Oh.” Michael felt his panic deflate a little, like it’d been poked with a pin.

“Yes,” Mr. Sims said, carefully not looking into Michael’s warm, blotchy face. “We can let you stay at least a week, if it takes that long to sort out the...”

“Situation,” Michael whispered.

“And you’ll be much safer in the meantime. You live several hours out of the city, don’t you?”

Michael barely remembered the name of the village, but ‘several hours away’ was close enough, so he nodded. He felt incredibly foolish again, but this time with relief. He’d thrown his temper tantrum, gotten what he wanted.

“Not close enough to hold a proper investigation,” Mr. Sims went on, setting Michael’s untouched tea back on the table by the fireplace, “not with the Situation still ongoing.” Another hesitation, a shift of the voice into something a shade less professional, more genuine: “You’ll be quite safe, Mr. Shelley. The Archivery - all binderies, but this one especially - is built for this kind of thing.”

Michael didn’t understand, but it was a single brick in an entire house made of his lack of understanding, and he was too brain-weary to ask more questions. 

“I can’t go back there until it’s gone,” he said quietly, tucking his hands under his thighs. “I... it’s done something to me. I can’t think, or - or remember. Everything... moves, changes color... hurts.”

Mr. Sims listened, quiet and patient, the same way he had for Michael’s last binding. It made Michael nervous for a moment, but he hadn’t agreed to a binding, and Mr. Sims knew the part about needing consent for one. 

“It’s - it’s like--” Michael struggled for the words. “It’s trying to get the world to eat me. But only in my head. But I’ll still...”

“Be consumed.”

Michael blinked, raising his head. “How did - oh, my God, you know already. How many - thirteen. You’ve had to listen to this thirteen times. I’m sorry, I’m so - oh, my God.”

“It’s my job. I’m used to it.”

“Still.” Michael tugged one hand free and covered his face with it. “I... I think I just... would like to sleep. If that’s all right.”

Mr. Sims dipped his head. “Of course.” 

It wasn’t that Mr. Sims was gentle, exactly. He was careful, and respectful, and gave Michael just enough space that Michael felt he wasn’t being given a suspicious berth, but the breathing room he needed. And the soft sagey green of his eyes was still, in some color-starved part of Michael’s mind, the color of safety. 

So when Mr. Sims offered a polite hand up from the voluminous armchair, Michael took it, rising on unsteady colt legs. He was almost half a head taller than Mr. Sims and felt every inch. 

Mr. Sims released him and led the way to the door. “It’s late and my mentor is out,” he said over his shoulder, “so we can get started on the investigation tomorrow. We’ll handle it for the most part - the assistants and Mr. Bouchard and I - but we’ll need to get your statement. Your non-binding statement, of course.”

“That’s fine.” As long, he thought, as I don’t have to leave.

“You won’t have to leave the Archivery for any of it,” Mr. Sims said, as if reading his mind. “You can if you want to, but... we find most people who stay don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“We’ll take care of food and anything else you need, except clothes.” Mr. Sims went in the opposite direction they’d come from, towards a flight of stairs at the end of the corridor, lit by flickering electric lamps. “It’s preferred that you stay on the hall you’ve been assigned to.” Then he paused just before the stairs, giving Michael a quick, unreadable glance. “But if there are... complications with your Situation, you can find one of us. Or come to my office. I’m usually there.” 

Michael felt like a blundering troublesome giant clomping up the steps just behind Mr. Sims. “I think I’ve been enough trouble. I’ll try to stay in my rooms.”

“Don’t,” Mr. Sims said, this time looking straight ahead. “Not if you need help. It’s better for us to have all the information we can.”

“Of - of course.” 

Michael couldn’t tell if this was professional instruction or genuine kindness on Mr. Sims’s behalf. But it had been so long since someone had shown even formalized generosity that it felt like kindness regardless. “Thank you, Mr. Sims. I - I appreciate it.”

Mr. Sims gave him a look Michael couldn’t read: tension at the corners of his mouth, a slight furrow to his brow, a heaviness in his eyes. If Michael wasn’t mistaken, it looked almost like a strange, uncertain grief.

But, given the Situation, Michael was probably mistaken. He lowered his head again and focused on making it to his new room.


	6. Entering With Relief Some Quiet Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Most people encounter... strange things, have it bound away, and then the strangeness is done with them.”
> 
> “The strangeness,” Michael repeated. “Like the door. And the man.”
> 
> Mr. Sims - Jon - nodded. 
> 
> “Or,” Michael said, “it eats them.”
> 
> Jon hesitated, his silence uncertain and calculating. Deciding how to respond. The answer must have been simple: “Yes,” he said. And after another hesitation: “Or the third option. It follows them.”

Sleep without dreams felt odd. Michael hadn’t realized he’d dreamed every night since he’d recovered from his last illness. (Was that related to the yellow door, too? All those times he’d been ill...) He couldn’t have described the dreams, didn’t remember them enough, but when he woke in the Archivery’s guest bedroom - covered by the quilt that had a blue, lonely smell, sunlight squeezing through the gaps in the curtains - his first thought was, _I actually slept this time._

For a long time, he contented himself to lay under the quilt, a peculiar silence in his head. It had been so loud before, hadn’t it?

There were a few well-patched hand-me-down clothes in a chest at the foot of the bed. None of them fit particularly well, but they weren’t so much bigger than he was. He’d make do. A small mirror hung above a plain, scuffy dressing table; he avoided looking into it by instinct. Just in case, he thought, though in case of what he couldn’t guess. He tidied the shirt collar and the waist of the trousers and his tangled hair as best he could without it, then went in search of breakfast, which Mr. Sims had said would be downstairs somewhere. The binders and assistants made it themselves, due to the Archivery employing as few servants as possible. 

The halls were winding but exact, somehow straighter and more navigable than any building Michael had ever been in. It almost seemed to help him remember where he’d been, which stairs to take, which turns to make, without him having to think at all. The old, fusty wallpapers left a fuzz of dust on his fingertips when he held out one hand, drifting his fingertips along it as he passed. A tickle built in the back of his throat but he didn’t sneeze.   


It was the smell of hot bread that drew him deeper into the Archivery, probably towards the back of the building. He passed by Mr. Sims’s office; light shone from under the door, and Michael almost stopped, but stopping would have been ridiculous, not to mention rude, so he went on.  


Chatter from the kitchen. Michael hesitated when he saw it at the end of a hallway, a golden-orange rectangle from which the yeasty scent and the sound of good-natured bickering drifted. His stomach growled - he’d fasted for over a full day. Mr. Sims had told him to help himself to breakfast, but maybe he hadn’t meant when other people, actual employees of the Archivery, were there.  


His stomach growled again. Michael chewed the side of his mouth. He couldn’t just stand in the hallway like a stalker until they left. And anyway, meals at the Shepards had always been chaotic, and he’d never let his nerves starve him before. Well, almost never.  


Summoning the old breakfast-time spine, Michael crossed the hallway to the kitchen door and peeked inside.   


To his relief, it was just two people, and one of them was Sasha. She and the man were on the other side of the kitchen, huddled near the oven, smearing jam on thick slices of bread. Sasha already had jam on her face, and was trying to push the man’s hand in such a way as to get jam on his face, too. He was batting at her hands, wearing an exaggeratedly pompous expression. “Not my precious face,” he was saying, “I’ll have to go out and source another--”  


“Michael!” Sasha exclaimed when she noticed him in the door. “Good morning! We have breakfast.”  


Michael opened his mouth, but the other man, turning to look where Sasha was, had dropped his guard, so Sasha pushed his bread directly into his chin. Ignoring the sputtering and accusations of being underhanded and unrepentant, Sasha put her own breakfast down and went to pull Michael fully into the kitchen.  


It was a cozy place, low-ceilinged and narrow, so the heat lingered comfortably. The windows, at street height, were for the most part shuttered, but the electric lights were on here, and the warm-gray glow and the buzzing sound, plus the crackle of smoky-smelling fire in the oven, made the kitchen sound like a soft blanket. On a nearby counter were bread, jars of jam, cheese, even bacon. Steam still curled from the spout of a teapot.  


“Have some,” Sasha said, leading Michael to the spread. “Jon said you’d be down sometime. Tim and I were waiting to show you. Michael, this is Tim Stoker. Tim, this is Mr. Michael Shelley.”  


“Just Michael, please.”  


Mr. Stoker said, “Just Tim, then,” and peered closer as he shook Michael’s hand. There was still a trace of jam on his chin. “So you’re the famous Michael.”  


Sasha swatted him in the upper arm. “Come on.”  


“What? He said it wasn’t a bound-up secret anymore.”  


Mr. Stoker - Tim - wasn’t taller than Michael, but he was more substantial, took up more space. Michael felt a little like a ghost, standing so close to him. He glanced between Sasha and Tim, a bit of his appetite fading. “What... what does that mean?”  


Sasha gave Tim a sour look. “So much for ‘the most emotionally sensitive,’ ‘basically a psychic’--”  


“To be fair, I was talking about dogs--”  


“Oh, dogs!” Sasha said, snapping her fingers. “What did Jon say about dogs?”  


“Jon didn’t say anything about dogs,” Tim said, staring at her. “Did he talk to you about dogs?”  


Michael almost jumped through the ceiling when something bumped his ankle. “No, no,” he said, finding himself suddenly very much in Tim’s personal space but unable to retreat, “no, he said it was safe here--”  


But then Sasha was crowing, “The cat! Not a dog. Michael, it’s fine, it’s not the Sp-- it’s not your - it’s all right, it’s just the Captain.”  


“You all right?” Tim asked, gently pulling Michael off the counter, where he’d pushed himself in his frantic escape attempt. He thought he’d sat on the bread, but he couldn’t see quite straight yet, even as Sasha continued to speak soothingly, though not necessarily to him. She went to where he’d stood, bent, and straightened up with a skinny bundle of black fur, small ears, and very bright teeth when it meowed, stridently mournful.  


Michael stared at the cat, and the pounding in his temples slowly went quiet again.  


“Oh,” he said softly. His ankle still tingled where the cat had brushed him.  


“Now I remember what Jon said about the cat,” Tim said. “Not a dog, Sasha.” Sasha made a face from behind the points of the cat’s ears.  


The kitchen righted itself, but Michael still felt unsteady, so he went to the small table in the corner and sat with a _thunk_. “I’m - so sorry,” he said, but the cat was wiggling in Sasha’s arms. When she let it go, it ran up to him, meowing that sharp-fanged little meow again. It couldn’t have been more than a year old.  


“Don’t apologize,” Sasha said, overly breezy, brushing it off with a wave of her hand. “It’s Tim and I who can’t remember a single thing with both our heads together. He brings me down to his level.”  


“Excusez moi,” Tim said.   


Michael smiled weakly, though he might have jumped a little, again, when the cat jumped up into his lap. Its little claws worked at his upper legs, needling him and making him wince. “Hello,” he whispered.  


It meowed at him again, its fluffy tail curling into itself when he petted its head with one fingertip.  


“Captain Werewolf,” Sasha said. “Jon named him the Captain, Tim was responsible for the Werewolf bit.”  


“It’s because he looks like a werewolf,” Tim explained.  


There was a gray, wolfy ruff around the cat’s neck, and there was a certain wolfish length to its snout. Michael scratched its forehead, and its eyes closed as it started to purr, still poking tiny holes into Michael’s legs. He was aware the kitchen had gone silent, but, at the moment, he didn’t know how to fix it, so he just petted the cat and assumed Sasha and Tim would take it from there.  


What he didn’t expect was Sasha saying, in that same forced cheery tone: “He remembers you every time, you know. That’s why Jon told us to warn you about him. He - the Captain, that is, of course, not Jon - he likes climbing up your leg. Or he did when he was smaller, and we’re not sure if he’s grown out of the habit.”  


Michael jerked his head up. “What?”  


Sasha exchanged a look with Tim, who shrugged and raised his hands.  


“Well,” she said, “you’ve been here a few times, you know.”  


“I... yes.” Michael looked down at the Captain again. “It’s just... it still feels like the first time. Or the second.”  


“Yeah,” she said, politely. “We got the Captain around the... oh, eighth time? He was in Jon’s office. Took to you as soon as you came in. If you ever found weird scratches on you after a binding, he’s why. Like I said, climbing up your leg and all.”  


All those illnesses - they must have been after every binding. Michael didn’t know why, people had themselves bound all the time and didn’t get ill, but he must have been an exception. The scratches must have healed up before he was well.  


Michael scritched under the cat’s chin and wondered if he had ever liked the cat back, or if he’d been in too much of a state to even notice. “Sorry,” he murmured to it. “Maybe I’ll remember you this time.”  


Captain Werewolf purred.  


“Well,” Tim said.  


“Yes,” Sasha said, clapping her hands and making Michael jump again. “We have work to do. We’ve shown you the breakfast spread, completely forgotten to do the one thing Jon asked us to do, and now we actually have to make ourselves useful. You all right here, Michael? Jon should be down soon. Trying to get to Elias about your...”  


“Situation.” The Captain bumped his nose against Michael’s collar bone.  


“Exactly.”  


Michael nodded. “I’m fine here,” he said. “I’ve got company now.”  


Sasha and Tim both gave the Captain pets before leaving. They were completely in each other’s space, like one person split into two bodies, still unused to moving separately. The adoration on Tim’s face was obvious, though. If Sasha noticed, she was probably too used to it to be moved, at least this early in the morning.  


Michael turned back to the cat, relaxing into the new silence, but then, back in the hallway behind his chair, he heard Tim say, “Morning, boss,” and a more familiar voice make a more muted reply Michael couldn’t quite hear.   


He sat up a little straighter as the Captain continued the painful kneading, and the conversation went on behind him. Now that he thought about it, the cat’s eyes did seem familiar.  


Some footsteps approaching his chair, and then, still behind him, Mr. Sims said, “They told me he found you. I hope it wasn’t too... traumatic.”  


Michael gave a nervous little laugh. “He, ah, startled me. But it was fine.”  


Mr. Sims moved around to give Captain Werewolf a gentle scratch behind one ear. Michael glanced up at him. His longish hair was tied back, neater than the evening before, and his clothes less comfortably rumpled but still soft, faded, over-large. The grayish-brown of them was more warm than cool. Like Mr. Sims himself, actually. He was still mostly gray to Michael, but less so than before.  


When Mr. Sims looked up, he realized then that he was staring, and also that Mr. Sims’s eyes were still very green. That hadn’t been part of last evening’s... oddness. It was nice.  


Mr. Sims turned away and went to the teapot, chafing his hands as if they were cold.  


“I tried to speak with Mr. Bouchard,” he said, as he poured a cup. “The director of the Archivery. With cases like yours, we’re equipped to investigate - I told you last night. He’s not in yet but I’ll get hold of him later on.”  


“Investigate,” Michael repeated. “What are you going to... to look for?”  


Mr. Sims leaned back against the counter, holding the cup between both hands. “It depends,” he said, and irritation pinched his brow, “but in this case, we’ll most likely get a statement from Gertrude Robinson.”  


“The...” Michael’s head hurt when he tried to remember, but he did remember. “The bookseller.”  


“Yes,” Mr. Sims said sourly. “The bookseller. And your family as well, of course--”  


“My employers, really.” The Captain leaned up, putting his paws on Michael’s chest, and Michael, obedient, intensified the scratches, especially between the Captain’s shoulder blades. “My friend’s family.”  


“Of course.” Mr. Sims almost continued, seemed to think better of it, and sipped his tea instead. “Then see if anyone else in town has... seen anything. Had odd experiences. And we’ll go through your old bindings.”  


Discomfort rose in his stomach, and he turned back to the cat. It was purring like a much bigger creature, deep and rumbling.   


“We have a strict privacy policy,” Mr. Sims said.   


Michael made a noise without looking up. He wasn’t worried about Mr. Sims sharing the experiences in those books, whatever they’d been, however bad they’d been. But he couldn’t think of Mr. Sims reading them in the first place - reliving that witness - without his appetite turning upside down.   


“No,” he said quietly, “no, it’s... I’m not worried about that, Mr. Sims. I trust you. The Archivery, that is.”  


Mr. Sims glanced at him sideways, sipping at his tea again as if to stop himself from speaking. But when he’d lowered the cup as well as his gaze, he said, “Jon. I know you don’t remember, but we have - interacted before. I feel...” Another hesitation, a slight straightening of the shoulders. “It seems pointless to stand on convention at this point.”  


Michael didn’t think he was physically capable of using Mr. Sims’s first name out loud. “All right,” he said anyway. “And... same. To you.”  


The small smile, weary at the corners, made Michael add, morosely, “How often have you heard me say that?”  


“Not very often. The bindings usually didn’t take that long. There were just a few exceptions.”  


“Oh.” Michael considered that, not sure if it’s better or worse or just a different flavor of embarrassing. “Were the exceptions... out of the ordinary? I mean, obviously, that’s what an exception is - I mean - is it out of the ordinary for the Archivery?”  


Mr. Sims glanced up at him again, and Michael wondered if he’d asked his real, honest question before, and so Jon knew it was lurking behind roundabout vagueness: Is there something wrong with me?  


“It’s,” Jon said, and ran his finger around his teacup again, “not unheard of. It’s not as common as someone coming in for a single odd sighting, of course. Most people encounter... strange things, have it bound away, and then the strangeness is done with them.”  


“The strangeness,” Michael repeated. “Like the door. And the man.”  


Mr. Sims - Jon - nodded.   


“Or,” Michael said, “it eats them.”  


Jon hesitated, his silence uncertain and calculating. Deciding how to respond. The answer must have been simple: “Yes,” he said. And after another hesitation: “Or the third option. It follows them.”  


Captain Werewolf must have felt Michael’s tension rise. He jumped down without preamble, leaving Michael’s hands empty where it had been. Breaking into a trot, it went to Jon’s feet and sat, gazing up at him with begging eyes.  


Without a word, Jon handed down a small chip of bacon. The Captain took it and carried it to the corner, where it ate with a gusto that sounded like it was crunching on bones.  


“A... a friend’s cat had kittens,” Jon said quietly, as he watched the cat and Michael watched Jon. “She thought we’d want one. We don’t have mice but we pretend, so Mr. Bouchard lets us keep him. He probably knows anyway.”  


“Why do strange things follow some people?” Michael asked, hugging both arms to his chest. “What do they want with - some people? What makes some people incapable of getting away with a quick bind and a normal life?”  


“We don’t know for certain,” Jon admitted. “It can be various factors. Personality. Past trauma. Mental health. Connections - family, friends, romantic--”  


“Connections?”  


“Or a combination,” Jon said, studiously ignoring Michael’s echo. “Or none of them at all. It can be pure chance. Sometimes a person is just... suited.”  


_Suited_. Michael shook his head slightly and looked down again. The kitchen still smelled faintly of breakfast but now the smell just made him feel ill.   


“Do they ever get away from it?” he asked, wishing he was home, with Ryan, and could pull his feet up on the chair, curl into as small a ball as he could wind up his ungainly body, warm by the fire. But Ryan had been eaten long ago. Eaten, like the cat ate the bacon. His hands clench against his ribs. “Does the binding ever... take? Finally?”  


Jon gave Michael the dignity of looking at him directly, without pity or condescension. His eyes were still green, the only color Michael could name that wasn’t gray. “Not that I’ve seen,” he said.   


Michael pinched his lips together tight, then nodded. “Well,” he said, turning away again and trying to sound like fear wasn’t squeezing his throat nearly shut. “In that case, Mr. S-- J-Jon, are you sure that’s all right?”  


“Yes. Of course.”  


“In that case, Jon, I don’t want any more bindings unless I just - until I can’t function without them. No offense intended but I’d rather... know. When it gets me. Whatever ‘it’ is.” He snuck another peek at Jon, hoping the fear didn’t show on his face, either. It probably did. Ryan had always called him an open book. Funny, in hindsight. “Have I said that before, too?”

Jon hastily turned to the tea service, picking out a spoon and swirling it around the cup, even though he’d already drunk half of it and surely the sugar was dissolved by then. There was a scar on his hand that Michael only just now noticed, an awful burn scar that didn’t match the little freckled scars on his face and neck. Where the little ones could have been mistaken for odd, pretty little birthmarks, this burn mark was obviously a scar, obviously the product of pain. The sight of it made Michael's heart seize briefly.  


“No, actually,” Jon said, watching the tea swirl in its cup. “That’s a new one for both of us, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to this chapter, but it's a necessary bridge to get where I want to go. :>
> 
> Also, shoutout to my mom's kitten, who is indeed named Captain Werewolf (Captain Christobal Werewolf in full) and who valiantly gave his name and appearance to one of the Admiral's offspring.


	7. Make A Sign That I Can See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, you’re useless out there,” Mr. Bouchard added, and Michael twisted a little, almost touching his temple to check for holes Bouchard could see through, “but you could make something of your... predilections here.” He tilted his head. “If that family of yours decides to cut their losses, we might have a place for you.”

“The least we could do is talk to Robinson,” Jon insisted. “It doesn’t have to be a full investigation, but we have proof of something stable enough--”

“I seem to recall that Mr. Shelley’s statement - or whatever it is, technically, without a binding at the end of it so far - included Ms. Robinson killing the avatar.”

The way Mr. Bouchard said it wasn’t cruel or pointed. He was calm and authoritative, without a trace of condescension or brusqueness. It was almost too sympathetic. Michael didn’t understand why he bristled at the man’s tone, but he did. Jon certainly wasn’t pleased. 

The office, too high-ceilinged for good lighting, wore its shadows heavily; they bore down and made Jon seem much smaller than he was, while the un-shaded lamp on the desk cast his face in chiaroscuro tones. It fell easier on Mr. Bouchard’s features, somehow, but it made Jon seem like a fussy cat.

“She might have just wounded it,” he said. “And we should at least get her version of the story.”

Mr. Bouchard looked amused. “Yes, let’s get Gertrude Robinson to tell us her story. I’m sure she’s anxious to add it to the shelves of statements she’s willingly given in the past.”

Jon looked sour. Michael glanced between them, hands knotted tightly in his lap.

“All the ridiculous stories we’ve researched,” Jon said, “and the time wasted on rich fools who can afford to pass off their own petty misdeeds on nonexistent ‘ghosts’--”

“Which does remind me,” Mr. Bouchard interrupted, steepling his hands. “Don’t you have other appointments today?”

“The investigation could start tomorrow.”

Mr. Bouchard sighed. He wasn’t a tall or broad man, but the way he held himself suggested, to Michael, that he was fully comfortable in his own authority. He turned to Michael for the first time since they’d entered his office. “Mr. Shelley, your recent traumatic experiences are truly regrettable and I hope you take advantage of Mr. Sims’s actual talents as a binder before going home. You’re in no rush - we have no other boards at the moment and the assistants are always eager to talk to subjects before they leave - but even if the... creature... you’ve encountered still exists, it has posed no larger threat, and it has always been weak enough for you to escape.”

Ryan, Michael thought, and, Weak.

“Therefore,” Mr. Bouchard continued, almost cheerfully, “I’m afraid we can’t look into your situation any further, especially since our Jon has begun to take on more responsibilities outside the amateur detective arena. Not as much time for gallivanting about, you understand.” 

Michael opened his mouth, though he had no idea how to respond to such a wall of refusal. Thankfully, Jon interrupted. “This entity has appeared thirteen times,” he said, leaning forward slightly, “and it was dangerous the first time. It had a prior victim.”

“How many?” Elias asked blandly.

“One,” Jon all but spat, “but it’s clearly got a level of - of - sentience that we don’t usually--”

At that point, the argument devolved into Archivery jargon which Michael wasn’t in the frame of mind, or the mood, to follow with much attention. He understood what was happening, anyway. His case was being thrown out. Mr. Bouchard wasn’t going to let Jon investigate it. Michael was going to leave the Archivery at some point, after some arbitrary week or so, with nothing but his memories to protect him. If he was so lucky.

He watched Jon gesticulating from an emotional distance, like his brain was, once again, submerged underwater. Once he’d seen Jon’s scar, pink and shiny and horrible, he couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t _stop_ seeing it. 

If Ryan had lived through whatever had killed him - even now, Michael couldn’t remember, just that the yellow door and the little man had something to do with it, or one of them did, or they worked for what was responsible, or were part of it, or--

His head started to hurt again. 

Would Ryan have come out scarred, if he had survived? Would Michael live long enough to be scarred by the mess he was in, or would he be gone soon, too? Ryan’s family had barely missed him once the funeral was over. Too odd, too twitchy, Ryan had been. Unreliable except, usually, with the sheep. And the weeding, if Michael was there, too.

He didn’t remember what Ryan had looked like. He knew how the warm black earth had felt under his knees, between his fingers, smudged across his chin or nose or cheek, and he could recall the timbre of Ryan’s laugh. But not what he’d looked like. There were no colors, of course, but even the shape, the size, the texture of him were gone. 

And Michael had woken up so enthusiastic this morning. It wasn’t even lunchtime and his previous hopes felt like foolish naivety, the product of too much rather than too little sleep. Maybe he _would_ get Jon to--

“Fine,” Jon spat, and suddenly he was grabbing Michael’s arm in that scarred hand, ignoring the startled jump in response. He rose and, despite the height difference, dragged Michael up, too. “Then we’ll let it eat a small village and only take care of it once some rich man comes in with enough gold to move you. Come on, Michael.”

He didn’t give Michael room to acquiesce on his own, heaving Michael towards the door. Too caught up in his own distress, Michael followed. It would be nice to get out of that office, no matter how it happened. Jon’s hand was warm around his lower arm, almost too tight except that the twinge of pain was grounding. Michael resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, to see what Mr. Bouchard was--

“Oh, Mr. Shelley, can I have a moment? Before my prize archivist kidnaps you any further?”

Michael stopped before Jon did, resulting in a little yank of his arm. That must have brought Jon to his senses, because he stopped and, visibly embarrassed, muttered, “Sorry.”

Michael fluttered a hand - _don’t worry about it_ \- but his voice wouldn’t come. Neither would a smile. He turned back to Mr. Bouchard’s desk.

For a moment, the three of them hung in limbo, Mr. Bouchard smiling until Jon took the hint and ducked out, reluctant and irritated.

Mr. Bouchard folded his hands atop the desk. “You have a way with memory,” he said. “And a good mind for the unusual, once you’re somewhere... safe.”

Michael stared at him. Maybe no one had told the director about the last time Gertrude Robinson had dumped him on the Archivery steps. Stupid and gibbering. Useless.

“Oh, you’re useless out there,” Mr. Bouchard added, and Michael twisted a little, almost touching his temple to check for holes Bouchard could see through, “but you could make something of your... predilections here.” He tilted his head. “If that family of yours decides to cut their losses, we might have a place for you.”

Michael laughed like the jolt of someone’s knee when struck in that particular jumpy nerve. “I don’t think,” he began, and then trailed off, because, in the face of Mr. Bouchard’s unreadable amusement, all his responses fell to pieces. Michael Shelley in a binding archive - it was wild to consider, even to try to picture. It wasn’t even the kind of joke Michael could find funny. 

“No,” Mr. Bouchard said at length, “you don’t, much. Ah, well. Worth a shot. It would have set off Robinson, anyway. You can go. I’d recommend sending a message to Ryan’s family before you’re bound. They’re bound to worry.”

They weren’t. Michael mumbled something in half-hearted acknowledgment, and then backed out of the room.

* * *

For all of Mr. Bouchard’s reminders that Jon had a busy schedule, Jon seemed free to lurk outside the office, waiting. As soon as Michael emerged, his arm was seized in that same perfectly-too-tight grasp. This time he didn’t even have the wherewithal to jump.

That must have been odder than a show of fear, because Jon yanked back again. “Sorry,” he repeated. “What did he say?”

Michael blinked, feeling dazed. Animals played with their prey or with toys this way: cats batted mice and balls of yarn, horses kicked buckets, dogs flung dead birds. Michael felt new kinship with the dead birds. “He offered me a job,” he said, “and then took it back.

That took Jon off-balance. He was speechless for a moment, taking Michael in, and Michael was reimpressed with the absurdity of it. The practical joke of it all. He finished the interrupted thought from earlier: Maybe he did want Jon to bind him again.

“I’m glad he took it back,” Jon said at last, and cleared his throat. “You don’t need to be here any longer than necessary.”

It had been a couple days in his role as The Fool, but hearing it so baldfacedly from Jon stung more than Michael wanted to admit. His shoulders hunched and he looked away. “Mm. Maybe... maybe you should just - just bind me, Mister--” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Jon’ but felt too awkward to go back to surnames, so he pretended to drift off, zone out. Act the simple fool.

Jon looked like something had hit him. “What? No. We agreed. We’re going to find it.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be hard when I’m not here any longer.”

“We’re not using you as bait,” Jon said, heated. Between the intimation that Jon wanted him gone and Jon’s use of ‘we,’ Michael couldn’t figure out how to respond, so he settled for pretending he had no feelings. It wasn’t hard. “Look, Sasha and Tim are in the upper library. I asked them to collect some... basics. You can go back to your room if you really want to - to give up, or you can work with us.”

Michael looked back at him. Jon’s eyes were so green they nearly glowed in the dark, desaturated hall. Why were they so-- 

Jon looked almost hopeful.

“What about Director Bouchard?” Michael asked. “He said not to.”

“He knew I was going to ignore him,” Jon said. “It’s his fault for not scheduling more bindings.”

The corner of Michael’s mouth twitched. 

“All right,” he said. “I’m here anyway. What kind of basics?”

* * *

“It doesn’t make sense,” Sasha said, aggressively dunking a shred of toast into her tea. “The time between each binding has been shrinking exponentially ever since the first one. It’s a clear pattern of increasing hostility.”

“But also increasing survivability,” Tim pointed out. “It opened with a murder. Sorry, Michael.”

Michael winced. “It was a long time ago.”

“Not long enough,” Sasha said, and threw a crust at Tim. “Behave.”

“But continue,” Jon said.

The upper library was better lit than the office. The books here weren’t real books, weren’t bindings - just hunks of dead trees with information in them - but there were more in the library than Michael had seen in his whole life. Three times as many as Gertrude Robinson had in her stall, at least. He wondered if she’d ever seen this library. 

Now, about a dozen of them littered the table where the four of them were seated in various levels of disarray. Jon looked like the interview and their subsequent twenty minutes of round-table catchup had roughed him up in an alley, unbuttoning his shirt cuff sleeves and tangling his formerly tidy ponytail. If Tim hadn’t been fighting a creature made of smoke and ashes that had belched all over him, Michael couldn’t guess what he’d been doing, unless it was taking a turn as chimneysweep. Alarmingly, Sasha sported a cut below her eye, and her glasses were missing.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she said cheerfully, waving off Michael’s horror at the state of them. “Someone donated a Leitner binding to our private collection and it was a little--”

“Spirited,” Tim finished, and coughed into a handkerchief again. “Some arsonist with anger issues.”

“We drowned it,” Sasha said, before adding swiftly, “The book, not the arsonist.”

“Not around to drown, is he?” Tim asked.

Michael didn’t understand at all, but it must have been a normal enough occurrence at the Archivery, because Jon only took a moment to make sure they were fit for working before moving on to the Situation.

Once they were all caught up to the meeting with Mr. Bouchard, Sasha produced the calendar she had sketched: a timeline of Michael’s bindings, the small vertical marks clustering closer and closer together the more time went on. It seemed so obvious, now that it was laid out in front of them - him. He should have realized. He should have noticed. It might not have done anything, but maybe--

“Elias knows this,” Jon said, jerking an irritated hand at the timeline. “This fits what we’ve seen before when entities start growing stronger.”

“Should I show it to him? As proof to get him to reconsider?” Sasha asked, flipping the timeline back to face her and studying her work. “No, it wouldn’t help, would it.”

“Doubt it.” Tim rubbed at a smudge of ash on his knee. “This is how he got about Martin.”

A gloomy silence fell. Michael glanced at them all. “What?”

“Fellow assistant,” Sasha said grimly, as Jon busied himself with a nearby stack of books. “He had a lot of the same patterns you did, actually. Different entity, of course. That’s how Bouchard hired him, because he kept showing his face.” 

Michael felt a slight chill. Dread replaced his curiosity about ‘entities.’ “...Oh. What... what happened?”

Tim snapped his fingers, and Jon jumped. Giving Tim a cutting glance, Sasha said, “Disappeared. Just... gone one day.”

“Gone?” Michael repeated, and all he could think of was Mr. Bouchard telling him that, if he needed a place, the Archivery would give him one. It hadn’t been a joke. “What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone,” Jon said, and dropped a slim book onto the table. “Michael, this is your assigned reading. A breakdown of what we’re working with. Some pages are marked. It’ll--” He paused briefly, his expression fixed and oddly business-like. “It’ll be more to bind if that’s the choice you make later, but I think it should help in the present.”

Michael took the book. Professionally constructed, but without a title on the cover, and the single name on the inside cover page was handwritten: _Keay_. It was less than a hundred pages long. Michael held it uncomfortably. “Thank you.”

Jon didn’t respond. “As for ourselves,” he went on, mostly to Sasha and Tim, “I think our best chance is to go to Michael’s hometown, visit the Shepards and Robinson. Read through the bindings, try to find any recurring locations or objects. The usual.”

Michael’s fingers tightened around the Keay book. It had been bad enough knowing Jon would reread the bindings. Now Sasha and Tim? He wouldn’t have to wait for the yellow door and the little man to kill him; he’d just die of shame.

“I doubt Elias will let me go,” Jon said, “but I can try and make a case for it if neither of you want to make the trip.”

Both assistants shook their heads. 

“Be nice to get out from under the roof,” Tim said, glancing sidelong at Sasha. “Breathe some fresh country air.”

“Wear sturdy walking boots,” Sasha said, smiling at him.

“Get our hands dirty.”

“Anger some locals.”

“Get chased with pitchforks.”

“My favorite.”

“Try not to make too much of a scene,” Jon said dryly. “But do what you have to do. Especially for Robinson.”

They both nodded. “We’ll plan the trip the rest of today,” Sasha said, holding up her pointer finger, then raising another as she went on, “and then catch up on the bindings tonight.”

“Long day,” Tim said cheerfully. “Been a while since we had this much to do.”

Michael wanted to apologize, but that would require speaking up, so he didn’t, returning his focus to the Keay book instead. There was an introduction, and then a list of fourteen items in bolded uppercase. Something about the list made Michael nervous. He closed the book again.

“We’ve all got our assignments,” Jon said, pushing his chair back from the table. “Unfortunately, I’ve probably kept Lord Whatshisface some minutes over his appointment time.”

Sasha checked a clock. “No worries, you’re just sixty-seven minutes late.”

“Damn.” Jon stood and smoothed one hand over his frazzled hair. He glanced at Michael. “If you have trouble with the book, or if you have questions, Sasha and Tim can help.”

“All right,” Michael said, suddenly desperate and not sure why. The idea of Jon leaving felt like watching a rescue ship sail right by his water-flooded rowboat. “Ah - have fun.”

Jon blinked at him. Flashes of green. Michael felt his cheeks flush with warmth.

“It’s my job,” Jon said. “I mean - that is, of course. Right. Thank you.”

Michael wished the yellow door had eaten him. Then Jon’s mouth made an odd expression, and he said goodbye to Tim and Sasha, and then he said goodbye to Michael, and then he was gone.

Michael found reasons not to read the book with its spiky, forbidding font while Sasha and Tim were in the upper library with him. He asked questions - “Have you read the bindings before?”, “What will you ask Ms. Robinson?”, “Why do people donate bound books?”, the like - and their subsequent tangents kept his mind from the growing certainty that he’d run from the mouth of one trap into the teeth of another.

He didn’t ask what entities were, how a bound book would have punched Sasha in the face and cut her with her own glasses’ edge; didn’t ask if they’d ever heard of a yellow door trying to kill you, or if the things he’d come to the Archivery to have bound away all those other times were truly frightening events, or if he was just a coward. He didn’t ask to see the books with his own eyes, read his old bindings.

The tangents eventually dried up, and Sasha and Tim left to plan their trip. The thought that he wasn’t going with them was so low on Michael’s list of concerns, he released the oddness of it immediately. He stayed in the library, the slim book still on the table, though a maid came in later and reshelved the other books they’d been reading. He offered to help, but she crisply informed him that she had special training, insinuating that he would only be in her way. He subsided to another table, in a darker corner, and watched the hands of the clock tick slowly towards evening.

It had been a while since he’d seen sunlight.

* * *

**VI. IT IS NOT WHAT IT IS.**

The name of the entity chasing him felt especially cruel, considering the state of his memories. He didn’t even remember enough to know what it wanted him to think it was, much less what it actually was, or wasn’t. There were just pieces, impressions, the green of Jon’s eyes, the little man in the graveyard. What was the opposite of that? What was the antithesis of that?

Well. Besides Jon’s eyes.

He hadn’t gotten around to undressing yet, though the clock on the bedroom wall read sometime past eleven. He wasn’t sure where the time had gone. After dinner - Jon hadn’t shown up, and Tim and then Sasha had melted away to put the finishing touches on their travel plans, leaving Michael alone at the table with the Captain - he ended up back in his room by necessity. That had been hours ago.

And he was still looking at the same title, underlined in delicate pencil. 

The knock at the door came without warning. For a heart-stopping moment, the simple, worn old door looked yellow, and Michael wasn’t sure if it really was - or wasn’t but looked it, or... something - or if he was imagining it. But the impression was gone even before he’d processed it, so he stood, leaving the book upside-down to mark his place (as if his place wasn’t just the table of contents). “H-hello?”

“It’s me. Sasha. Are you decent?”

Michael was halfway to the door before hesitating. “Are... are you sure?”

“Sure? About what? Sure that I have questions for you, yes.”

He blinked, then set propriety aside and went to the door. 

Sasha was still fully dressed, too, and she held a small basket between her hands. She smiled at him, and it was clearly meant to look cheerful, but there was a tiredness to her eyes that made it look strained instead.

“We keep strange hours,” she said, like that explained why she was visiting him at nearly midnight. “Can I come in?”

He stepped aside, wordless. She swept in, commandeered the chair he’d been squirming in for the past few hours, and set the basket down. When she saw the book, she picked it up, flipping it over to see how far he’d gotten. “Huh,” she said, then replaced it carefully, as if she could find the exact place he’d lain it, as if it mattered. “Having a hard time with it?”

“Oh,” Michael said, still hovering near the door. If he could keep an eye on it, maybe it would behave. “There’s so much already to think about, it’s just...”

She tilted her head, waiting for him to finish. No one ever did that.

He blinked again. What had he meant to say, anyway? “It’s just hard to imagine,” he said. “A... a certain thing. Knowing what it is. Or isn’t. Maybe it’s easier for... for people with other... entities.” He sounded foolish, using their jargon. He was just a victim, not one of them, no matter what Elias Bouchard said. “But mine is - isn’t - what it is, it’s... Yes. I’m having a hard time with it.”

Her smile turned real. The fake one hadn’t highlighted the lines beside her eyes, Michael realized. When she really smiled, her eyes crinkled. The left side of her mouth lifted a little more than the right side. 

“I know you think you’re our most pathetic case,” she said, tucking one foot behind the other, daintily, “but that’s how we all were. Tim, me, Martin, even Jon. All of us at the Archivery are here because we couldn’t... deal with things the right way, on the outside. That’s what I came to talk about, actually.” 

“Really?” He moved closer, finally, though at an angle, never turning his back completely on the door. Just in case. There was only one chair, but he took a seat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. 

Sasha turned to face him, bringing the basket into her lap. “Well,” she said, and withdrew a small collection of what looked like white-painted newspaper scraps, “the first thing is - I wanted to know if you had some message to take to the Shepards.”

The Shepards. Michael rocked back slightly, then caught himself on the trunk’s edge. “I forgot about the Shepards,” he said, almost to himself, and then snapped his attention back to her. “That sounds wretched - I didn’t mean--”

She was already shaking her head, though she’d bent her attention down to the pad, so he couldn’t read her face. Was she disgusted? “No,” she said, “not wretched. Again: completely normal. It’s a lot to deal with, especially without being bound. But you remember, now, and don’t take that for granted.”

Hesitating, Michael considered it. The many-headed hydra of the Shepard family felt even more distant, untouchable, than ever. Would they even want to hear from him?

“I’d like them to know,” he said, carefully, “that I’m sorry for - leaving without warning. I appreciate all they did for me. And I hope, if I come back soon, they’ll be able to...” Take him back in? That seemed presumptuous. “Forgive me,” he said, picking at his sleeve. “Or see me.” 

“Or?”

“Forgive and-or see me. They’ll understand.” Or not. He would handle it either way.

She nodded without raising her head. She made a quick, squiggly mess of shorthand on one sheet, which she ripped off and tucked into the pocket at her hip. As soon as it was out of sight, Michael felt a little better, less like a prodigal son.

“I’ll deliver it to them,” Sasha said, tucking the paper and pencil back into the basket, “and reassure them of your best intentions.”

“Thank you. Really.”

“You’re welcome. Really.” She pulled out a fabric-wrapped bundle, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “Now the second thing.”

 _Couldn’t deal with things the right away._ Was it some kind of cure? Michael leaned forward, failing to suppress how curious he really was.

Recovering her smile, Sasha placed the bundle into his hands. “This might seem... weird,” she said, as Michael undid the twine around the bundle’s wrapping. “I know it feels like we just met. But - well. Anyway. One of the reasons I’m here - at the Archivery, I mean - is that I found a Leitner - he’s another binder, a rubbish one, awful man - and it... changed me, a little. Did you see the Stranger in your book? The name, at least?”

Michael nodded as the wrapping fell away. Beneath it all was a small doll. The face and body were wooden, worn smooth and shiny; the clothing was rough and clumsily made, but the shades of it were light and clean, and the smile on its little face was happy.

“Once I’d read the book, no one remembered me, out there.” Sasha’s hands clasped tight over the basket. Her voice had lost a little of its strength. “I... I got replaced. I’d gotten bound before for - other things, nothing odd, just human problems - so I came here, when… when I didn’t have anywhere else. Jon helped me.”

Michael stared at her. “Replaced,” he repeated, stroking at the doll’s soft, frizzy hair.

Sasha bit the corner of her mouth, her gaze on the doll, not his face. “No one in my family remembers me anymore,” she said, and her mouth spasmed like she was trying to smile out of force of habit. “The... the replacement is gone, but I’m still... erased, I guess. I don’t make much of an impression anymore. It’s... all right, here in the Archivery. You won’t completely forget I exist. But I’ll probably go hazy.” A forced, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m vain enough to admit I don’t want you to forget me.”

He clutched the doll tighter. It did look a little like her. “No,” he said, “I don’t - I don’t want that, either.”

Relief played across her face. “It’ll help me remember you, too. It’s... it’s an odd thing, I know. You don’t have to keep it on you. Just... somewhere you’ll remember it. And then we won’t have to have reintroductions when I come back.”

He smiled faintly. “Been enough of those already, haven’t there?”

Genuine cheer replaced relief. She met his eyes for the first time since she’d taken his note. “Hopefully we’ve had the last one.” She nodded to the doll. “That was my childhood favorite, so be careful with her.”

Michael unwrapped his fingers quickly, smoothing at the doll’s dress. “Maybe I shouldn’t take her--”

“Oh, I was joking.” Sasha prodded at his shin with her shoe, very lightly. Michael didn’t even jump, for which he was very proud. “I mean, she was my favorite, but she’s just a doll. The memento is the important thing about her.”

“I - thank you.” Daringly, he nudged her foot with his, a self-conscious mirror of her previous movement, but, he hoped, not an altogether unwelcome one. “I... I’ll take care of her. Thank you, Sasha.”

He hoped she understood what he meant. He was mostly out of words to explain himself, at least of words that made sense. But she leaned back in the chair, her shoulders relaxing, looking like a weight had been taken off her shoulders, and he thought she might.

* * *

It was late enough that it seemed laughable at best, rude and alienating at worst. But his conversation with Sasha circled Michael’s head, stalking him wolf-like. She’d been forgotten, replaced in her own life. Ryan had been eaten alive. Jon and Tim had their own stories, apparently. And Michael was one of them, now. 

He had to understand, but he wasn’t making progress on his own. 

The Keay book in hand, Michael knocked on the workroom door.

It was almost one in the morning. He’d debated doing this for half an hour before screwing up the last shreds of his courage. Even as he waited, second thoughts dashed through his head. _Turn around. Go back. It’s too late. Even if he is awake, he’ll be annoyed. He’ll think you’re needy. He’ll think you’re stupid. He’ll think--_

The door opened. Jon, exhaustion written on his features, looked up at Michael, and, unmistakably, his eyes brightened. 

“Michael,” he said, his voice roughened by sleeplessness. “It’s late - is something wrong?”

For a moment, all Michael could see was green. His insides warmed; he _felt_ brighter. It wasn’t a peaceful, tidy feeling, but it wasn’t bad, either. Definitely not bad.

He held out the book, trying to steel his spine the way he’d seen Gertrude Robinson do, the way Jon had earlier in Mr. Bouchard’s office. “I just,” he said, “need help with... all of this. I - obviously it doesn’t have to be tonight, but... but sometime. It’s...”

He licked his lips, uncertain how honest to be.

Jon took the book. It was so slim, so small. Like a children’s book. 

“It’s terrifying,” Jon said. “Alone... isn’t the way to do it.”

Michael swallowed. “No,” he said. “I’d... I’d rather do it with you.”

Jon’s little start made Michael’s face burn, and he added quickly, “The - the Archivery staff. You. All of you. Generally, you know.”

Jon gazed up at him, silent for an interminable moment. Michael could almost see the thoughts running, like mathematical equations, behind his eyes. 

“I’m awake,” Jon said, and, stepping away from the door, he gestured Michael into his workroom. “If neither of us can sleep, we might as well get something done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been approx. 84 years but I FINALLY got a chapter done and published that actually accomplishes something. Yay!


End file.
